World of Warcraft’s Cataclysm: Ars tours the new Azeroth

The last major patch before the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion shows …

World of Warcraft's grip on the way things used to be has slipped again, down to a couple of fingers. What is possibly the last major patch before the next expansion, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, went live on Tuesday night, implementing many small changes that set the game up for the impending apocalypse.

Perhaps the biggest change comes from the effects of the impending war trickling down to new and newish players. The cutscenes that play when starting a new character have been updated to include the Wrath of the Lich King and the looming Cataclysm storyline. From the beginning, each race is told about the coming conflict—the rise of Dragon Aspect Deathwing and any factions that take his side—and that they need to prepare adequately. In the new Azeroth, everyone will be fighting the same war.

The new questing process has been implemented, as Blizzard has promised for some time. While I have not yet played through all of them for a significant amount of time, most are shaped more like the engaging quest chains found in Northrend and less like the classic quests, which were along the lines of "Hey there, mage, my friend might have been eaten by murlocs. Go search the entire south side of this lake for a small pile of bones."

Stormwind's burned towers feature in the starting human cutscene that describes the Northrend pursuits as "costly."

Along with the more engaging play, all of the Azeroth maps have been redrawn and properly labeled with sub-zones. This should make it much easier to get around for leveling players. More seasoned players may think it's too easy, but I will envy the newbies for the many hours they don't spend finding out they've grubbed around the wrong area for a quest item, again.

If you're loading up the patch on a character who can get around to a few areas, it appears some time has passed (about a few years, depending on who you ask). Both old-world continents look like they've been at war for some time: some areas are newly flooded, like Menethil Harbor and Thousand Needles, while others have emerged from the water (Loch Modan has been drained). Many areas look like they've been battered by something huge, as with the Badlands' new Scar of the Worldbreaker.

Old Badlands vs. New Badlands: scars really get the chicks, as does proper labeling.

The Badlands aren't alone, either—Westfall has a nice new Raging Chasm to complement its farms. Some areas, though, are showing signs of fighting back. Gnomeregan has been repopulated with various pint-size gnome troops attempting to reclaim the instance, and the dreaded instance itself has been updated to reflect this with design and quests.

Many of the zones have received an aural treatment as well as the visual, and some new music loops have been brought in. Darnassus' music sounds like the Trans-Siberian Orchestra playing some ominous chimes.

A comparison of the Eastern Kingdom's map shows areas that have emerged—for example, the Twilight Highlands hanging off the east coast, the sunken city of Vashj'ir emerged off the west.

The maps in general have also been filled out quite a bit. Many areas that were previously unlabeled and unaccessible on the map have been filled in, some with new level 80-85 content. Of course, those areas won't be accessible until the actual expansion drops. Passages that looked open on the map turned out to be blocked by mountains, though presumably Deathwing will knock them down at the appropriate time.

The wide-open passage on the map from Tanaris to Uldum turns out to be blocked by mountains.

According to Blizzard's announcements, the virtual world is due for some interesting in-game events in the next couple of weeks, leading up to the expansion's release on December 7. Namely, Deathwing is going to be going around randomly destroying zones in real time, and likely killing a lot of players.

The whole game feels like it's in an adolescent stage right now—everyone knows what's going to happen (except for maybe all of the NPCs), and now it's just a question of whether it will blossom into something incredible, turn into a gangly, pimply monstrosity, or some combination of the two. If you're interested in seeing Azeroth go to hell in a handbasket, now would be the time to join up.

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston